In yesterday’s hearings at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Kavanaugh reacted at the political level exactly as Dr. Blasey Ford describes his behavior at the physical level.

He wants a seat on the Supreme Court; at the possibility of being denied it he responded with fury and verbal violence. Just so, when he wanted sex and was refused it, he responded with physical violence. He is a bully, and everything we know about his judicial behavior and what we now know from three distinct women about his physical behavior jibe. They fit together.

The American people do not deserve a bully on the Supreme Court. Please call your own Senators and Senators Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski to urge them to vote No on confirming Kavanaugh, because he has shown himself to be not unqualified but DISqualified to sit as a judge, let alone on the Supreme Court.

This decision will affect the next 30 years of American history. It is not only women he will bully, though it was notable that he expressed his bullying even more toward the women Senators than toward the critical male Senators. Those of us who are men have a sacred responsibility toward our own honor, to the decency of our male children and grandchildren, and to all Americans to teach that being male does not mean being a bully and a rapist.

Torah teaches that we celebrate Sukkot because the first sukkot were places of protection for refugees – the vulnerable runaway slaves of the Exodus.   (Lev 23: 43).  This Sukkot, it is a Jewish obligation to help build American  society as a sukkah, a place of shalom for all the vulnerable. A place to shelter all of us from bullies.

To do that we must act now by calling, visiting, imploring, sitting-in --   insisting that our Senators vote against empowering a bully;  help Grow the Vote  by working to register new voters (especially from millennials and others who have a history of low voter turn-out in “off-year” elections) and follow through by voting ourselves and helping others vote in November.

Ufros alenu sukkat shlomecha-  Spread over all of us the Sukkah of Shalom! 

__  Arthur